


i frolic in the glory and buckle in the shame

by Hexx



Series: this love language is music [6]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Everything is okay in the end I promise, F/M, Jyn doesn't know how to talk to people so sometimes she yells, Jyn loves Saw just as much as she hates him, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Sense Of Betrayal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 11:55:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16810093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hexx/pseuds/Hexx
Summary: Saw gave Jyn her survival instincts, her questionable people skills and her temper.akaSaw is Jyn's biggest trigger even after all this time.





	i frolic in the glory and buckle in the shame

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the song Good and Bad by Maria Mena. Because the world is not black and white, but many shades of grey.
> 
> This one is long friends, buckle up. This is a direct tie in to 'under pressure that brings a building down' for context.

“What is it called when you’re seeing someone but you’re not dating them?” Jyn asked from her spot on the grass, stretched out to enjoy an uncharacteristically warm day before fall fully slipped into winter. She lifted one leg up into the air above her and stretched it when she felt the first twinge of a cramp trying to settle in.

“Hooking up.” Came an almost muffled reply from the cellphone Jyn had pressed against her ear.

“What is it called when you’re seeing someone, but you’re not dating them, but you’re also not sleeping with them?” Jyn offered, seeing something fly past her out of the corner of her eye. She turned her face towards it, squinting to see if she could spot whatever type of fowl it was.

“Is there any intimacy at all?” The response was less muffled this time as her friend put down whatever it was she’d been working on and held the phone to her face properly.

Jyn cocked her head to the side for a moment as she considered it. Sometimes it felt intimate, when they were alone or when it was just the sound of each others voices over the phone at night. The way he let her lay her hand against his arm as she pleased, or when he’d reach up and brush a stray eyelash off her cheek in the middle of conversation. How when eye contact was too overwhelming of a sensation he mumbled his words against her skin, voice somehow even softer than a whisper. Even when they were with other people, sometimes the look he would give her felt so charged and private. But by the standards that Enfys was asking…no. They weren’t intimate.

“Sometimes we touch each other’s face.” She offered. Enfys snorted through the phone.

“With your mouths?”

And Jyn turned scarlet all the way down her neck as she dropped her leg back to the ground with a solid, and slightly painful, thump. “No.”

Enfys Nest hummed thoughtfully through the phone, and behind her Jyn could make out the quite sounds of the others in the background. Jyn wanted to ask where they were, if they were alright. But she held her tongue. She’d left that sort of world behind when Saw had left her behind. When Galen had reentered the picture to take her and Bodhi out of the life. And Enfys respected that, as long as Jyn in turn respected that there were now secrets that Jyn wasn’t privy to.

“Sounds like friendship.” Enfys said finally, her tone warm. Jyn nodded even though her friend couldn’t see it.

* * *

Jyn thinks she would have been surprised at how easily Cassian, and by extension his friend Kay, integrated into the group if it wasn’t for the fact that the group itself was so dissimilar. Ever since they were children Bodhi had always taken that School House Rock song about America very seriously, and at times like this Jyn couldn’t help but recall it. A melting pot was a fair enough descriptor for the cluster of people she found herself surrounded with. They were all packed into Luke and Leia’s living room for a movie night since nobody was interested in going to the lacrosse game on campus. Jyn nestled in her corner spot on the couch with R2 purring away in her lap, watching as Bodhi and Luke bustle back and forth from the kitchen with the snacks. C3-P0 follows at Luke’s heels, meowing loudly every time Luke puts something down and therefore has a free hand available for petting.

Kay was contributing to the rising debate that Leia and Han were having about what movie was actually going to be played, though for the most part he was just offering detailed stats of how well each proposed movie did in the box office and it wasn’t clear if Han or Leia was even listening to him. But he seemed to be enjoying himself none the less.

Cassian tilted his head back from his spot on the ground, so that it was pressed against Jyn’s knee. Warmth radiated outwards from the point of contact, and without thinking about it one of her hand’s slid away from R2 to tangle in the hair at the nape of Cassian’s neck.

He relaxed further back into the touch instantly, and Jyn felt incredibly satisfied in that moment. Cassian was surprisingly tactile, once you got to know him. Past the default expression and the crossed arms, there was a bounty of warm smiles and gentle touches. His hand would graze her arm when they walked around campus. When he leaned past her to get something he’d brace against the small of her back. Or how when he had something to say that he was having trouble saying out loud he would put his mouth against her ear, her temple or her shoulder and mumble it there. Jyn used to think she would only get used to casual physical contact from Bodhi or Leia, but it seemed Cassian was also an exception to her rule.

R2 hopped off her lap, clipping the side of Cassian’s head on his way down which caused the man to jerk slightly. But after a few moments he leaned back again against her and Jyn slid her hand back into his hair. She made eye contact with Luke when he came in to drop off napkins on the coffee table and he gave her an exaggerated eye roll in the direction of his twin and Han before shuffling back to the kitchen. Jyn grinned in response, all teeth and barely contained laughter.

It had taken Jyn a long time to realize just how at ease these people made her feel, the friendly chaos of it so much warmer and supportive then the chaos of Saw. These were people who supported her and her bullshit, even if they didn’t understand all of it. Even if they didn’t understand her sullen silences and her combative attitude making her quick to snap at them sometimes. They didn’t care about that because they cared about her. Cassian gave her the same feeling, the same warmth and ease that the others did. And if she had to guess, just from body language, the group had the same calming effect on Cassian. Which meant she had a calming effect on Cassian. And she wouldn’t try too hard to untangle what that could mean. Not yet.

“Alright, fine. Luke, you deicide.” Leia said, launching herself to her feet and slapping at her legs to dislodge some cat hair she’d picked up from the carpet. “I’m getting a drink.”

Luke, breezing in from the kitchen with a dvd already in hand like he had been anticipating this all along, inserted Star Trek: The Voyage Home with a smile over shoulder towards Bodhi, who had been shaking his head in the doorway. Jyn caught the farm boy mouthing ‘I told you so’ at her brother and the fond look that settled over Bodhi’s mouth as he grinned back. She couldn’t help but smile at the whole display, the interaction 30 seconds long and heavy with so much emotional water weight. Han and Leia were still bickering in the kitchen, though it was gradually growing softer until there wasn’t any sound at all. Chewie rolled his eyes and said something like an idiom in Norwegian that nobody really understood verbatim, but the gist was pretty clear. ‘Getting a Room’ was indeed a universal mood.

Cassian keeps to his spot on the floor as Bodhi and Luke slot themselves into the space beside Jyn. Lando, arriving late as always but baring cold beer, manages to drive Han and Leia out of the kitchen and onto the other couch where he lounges between the two of them to ‘make sure they behave’. Chewie and Kay take up the ottoman and sad excuse for a beanbag chair respectively. It’s cozy, and it’s natural, and Jyn feels more at home then she has in years and years and years.

“Hey,” Han said when the credits were rolling. “So I heard about this thing downtown that they do in the fall. Apparently they offer Ghost Tours starting at the old post office and-“

* * *

Saw had always warned her about honeymoon periods. And things being too good to be true.

Jyn and Cassian had had disagreements before, they’d had arguments. This was nothing like that. This was heated, rage rising off their skin and simmering the air around them in a way that Jyn could taste it, thick on her tongue. They are standing so close to one another that they are nearly bumping, but there is that sliver of separation. And Jyn has her hands clenched into fists at her sides to stop from lifting them because she knows that at this point the only way they’re going to touch is in violence. And despite the anger jumping between them, neither of them wanted that.

In this moment, Jyn wasn’t really sure what she wanted.

Cassian’s eyes raked down her face, looking for something that she was sure he wasn’t going to find. In response she just grit her teeth and let her snarl become more pronounced.

“You knew where, no, you know where my godfather is and you didn’t tell me?” She manages to choke out despite the way her rage was sitting in her throat. Cassian shifted back just enough to violently run a hand through his hair, gripping and tugging it for a moment before he gestured to himself.

“It wasn’t my place to tell you. Draven -” He says and he might have tried saying something else but Jyn cut him off, tone biting and venomous.

“Bullshit. I trusted you with that, with him.” She knows her volume is rising, she knows they are yelling. Knows people are probably staring at them as they stand toe to toe and consider ripping one another’s throats out.

“Jyn, you don’t understand.” Cassian says and it sounds like it might be a plea if it wasn’t stamped out by that condescending tone of conviction he had sometimes. “This has nothing to do with you, I was looking into Gerrera before I even met you. You weren’t part of it-“

“You could have told me.” She tries to take a step forward but there is nowhere to go because he doesn’t move an inch, doesn’t even flinch back to make room for her in his space. For half a second her knuckles bang against the back of his hand before they sway back into her own territory. “You could have said something, told me the truth the second you realized who I was talking about.”

“I didn’t think you would care.” Cassian suddenly shot back and Jyn momentarily felt stunned. “You never seemed too thrilled to talk about him and so I didn’t know if you could handle the situation.” He bit out, eyes dark and heavy lidded as he tried to force her volume lower by lowering his own. “And seeing as how you won’t even trust me enough to let me explain, I can’t help but feel like I was fucking justified.”

“Trust goes both ways.” Jyn snaps out, and she knows she is red in the face and she can feel she’s close to tears but she will be damned if she lets Cassian see her shed a single one. Never again. When he opens his mouth to try to speak, Jyn steamrolls over him. “You can’t talk your way out of this.”

For a moment Cassian looks pained, like she managed to strike him without lifting a finger. And then the expression is gone. Closed up and sealed off as all his walls went flying up. And then he leans forward, and instinctively Jyn has her hand braced against his chest to support his weight as he murmured against her ear, “I don’t have to.”

She feels like all the air has been sucked out her body and she’s struggling to maintain her composure as he leaves, walks right past her without pause and Jyn keeps her knees locked to stop from turning and watching him go. It feels like the worst punch to the gut she’s even gotten, leaves her heart somewhere in her throat and the pit of her stomach all at the same time. And she’s hiccupping for air as her eyes start to burn. The hand wrapping around her elbow should have startled her more than it does as a member of campus security guides her off the path to a low stone bench partially walled off by some tall bushes that buildings and grounds has neglected in the face of the coming winter months.

“So.” The man says, standing in front of her. His voice is gruff and tired but still somehow patient. “What happened.” It was asked like a question that wasn’t actually anticipating an answer, but Jyn found herself unable to stop herself from speaking.

“He lied to me.”

“Did he?” The man sounded surprised as he shifted in front of her, and Jyn stared at the cuffs of his pants a she felt the first of the hot tears manage to escape. “Doesn’t seem the type, with a face like that.”

Jyn scoffs, finally bringing herself to look up at the campus cop. “A face like what?”

“Like a friend.” The older Asian man says with a shrug. Jyn makes out ‘B. Malbus’ on the embroidered name tag stitched to the front of the shirt. His long dark hair is barely contained in the ponytail holder he’s got it stuffed in and it looks like a very dark lions mane haloing his face. After a moment Jyn looks away again to stare at her hands. She notices angry red marks in her palm, little half crescents from where her nails had dug in. The man let out a longsuffering sigh and eased down into the bench beside her, not seeming to mind when Jyn shifted away towards the edge. Instead he mirrored the action and scooted towards the opposite end. And there they sat on the bench in silence for a few moments, with space enough between them for a whole other person.

It was surprisingly grounding.

“What did he lie about?” the man asked, and Jyn shot him a suspicious look. But he seemed unbothered by the heat in her gaze. Just watched her in contemplation. Something about him radiated a paternal energy that made her achingly miss her father, despite his short comings with words of comfort.

“He knew where my Godfather was, he’s known the whole time we’ve known each other.”

“And?” The man asked, tone ever steady. Jyn felt her eyebrows pull together in slight confusion. The anger was still leaving her muddled, maybe she wasn’t being clear enough.

“And he didn’t tell me.” She explained.

“Did you ask him?” Malbus countered, and it took Jyn aback.

“No I- I mean yes I did just now but-“

“And he admitted to knowing? Just now?”

“Yes.” Jyn said, feeling heat rise to her face.

“So he didn’t lie to you, you just didn’t ask.” Malbus said and Jyn snapped her jaw together tightly, pushed into his space before she could think better of taking a threatening stance towards a member of campus security.

“That is stupid, I can’t just ask every new person I meet if they happen to know where my Godfather is. The point is he still kept it from me.” She hissed, and the man nodded solemnly. “He kept it from me and he shouldn’t have.”

“That is probably true, little one.” Malbus said and Jyn was surprised to note that for once that term of endearment didn’t sound condescending. “But that is a separate issue from a man lying to you.”

Jyn deflates beside him, sagging so she can rest her elbows on her knees and bury her face in her hands. “Semantics.” She mumbles into her palms. She was still reeling from it all, how it had all somehow come to this. She sees Saw’s face behind her eyelids. Sees him smiling at her from the driver’s seat of the beat up station wagon as she sings along to some old song on one of his cassette tapes. The proud glint in his eye when she came out on top over the inter cadre brawl with one of the new soldiers who didn’t know his place. The look of disappointment he wore when he picked her up from prison after her first stint in juvie because she had gotten caught in the first place.

She thought about how much she hated being a Partisan. How much she has spent the last handful of years resenting Saw. How maybe an hour ago he was the farthest thing from her mind and now he was front and center to all her actions.

She wonders if Cassian would have ever said anything, if the truth hadn’t come out the way it did. In her mind’s eye she can see the look of horror that flickered over his face as he stared down at her, cellphone pressed tight against his ear but the man on the other end was still so painfully audible.

 _“A commendation on how well written your Gerrera report was.”_ The man had said _. “Another agent has gone in on your intel and confirmed that the shelter is under Gerrera’s legal name.”_

It was like the world had stopped, had stuttered to a grinding halt and she lurched at the sensation beneath her feet. All the loyalty that Saw had drilled into her from the moment he first took her hand until the moment he pressed that fucking knife in her palm and went to ask the motel clerk for another set of towels. All the Partisans she’d ever known whose secrets she had kept by turning down the requests to testify by state lawyers thinking her getting out of the life meant her wanting to destroy it. The way he stroked her hair and held her when she sobbed at the nightmare that was her mother’s death over and over again. How he hid Bodhi from child services with a lie that he’d run away when really he was under the table with his face buried between Jyn’s shoulder blades.

He had been her father for so many years, and the painful sense of loss that she thought she’d buried years ago had burned through her in the face of Cassian’s betrayal. Now the fire had run its course and here she sat, just as much as shell as she had always been.

“I trusted him.” She says finally, softly. And Malbus pats her shoulder with more force then he probably meant to.

“I’ve seen that boy around here for a while.” He says, not looking at Jyn but rather staring across the courtyard at a pair of students attempting to slide down a stair railing on their skateboards. “Seen you around too. And I noticed some things about you both before I started seeing you around here together.”

“What things?” Jyn asks, feeling tired.

“You both walk around like there’s going to be a fight any second.” He says, managing to make eye contact with one of the skateboarders. Jyn watches as the boy’s spine goes ramrod straight and he quickly gestures for his friend to grab his gear and move it. They hustled away and the security guard’s expression looked momentarily smug. It would have been funny, if Jyn had been in a better mood. “You don’t keep many friends but the ones you do keep you’ve got a death grip on. Like you’re afraid they’ll go on without you.”

Jyn feels a tingle in her spine and she grumbles “You sound like you’ve been talking to Professor Imwe.”

The man laughs a deep, pleased laugh that Jyn has to fight from joining in on. Despite his gruff and prickly everything, the man is surprisingly personable. “He is more the type to talk at you then with you, you’ll find.”

And Jyn does have to laugh at that, though it is just a single burst before she shakes her head and sighs again. The weight of Malbus’s hand shifts slightly in an approximation of a reassuring squeeze before the contact retreats all together.

“But my point holds,” He says, bracing his hands onto his knees as he hauls himself up off the bench. “Which is the pair of you are too similar for whatever you two just fought about to have ever been anything but a fight.”

Jyn feels taken aback at that, surprised that his advice hadn’t been that it would all work out or some other generic but unattached advise that strangers usually doled out. Her confusion must have been telegraphed all over her face because he let out another one of his deep chuckles.

“I feel offended by that.” Jyn says, eyebrows knit together. “Though I can’t entirely place why.”

“Natural self-preservation instincts.” Malbus offers as he holds his hand out to help her up. Jyn grasps his arm like a centurion handshake and hauls herself to her feet, feeling very small when he cradles her elbow in the palm of his hand. “But regardless… just because this fight was inevitable between the two of you, doesn’t mean it should be the last thing to happen between you two.”

And then he gives her a little nod and walks away. Moving with a bit of labored grace as he loped off towards the Jedah building. In the distance Jyn caught sight of the bright red lining to Professor Imwe’s dark trench coat billowing in the wind. When the wind reaches her, she wraps her arms around herself and shivers before turning away. The walk back to her apartment was long and silent, other students conversations sounding dull as she passed them. The idea that the wound that was Saw within her chest was still so raw and inflamed that having someone else touch it would be explosively painful was not the type of reality she expected to be handed by a total stranger. Dr. Mothma one day maybe, but by a man that was essentially a cop? Never.

* * *

“So what was the fight even about?” Han asks as he drops himself into the empty spot on Leia’s couch beside Jyn. She bounces slightly at the impact and snarls at him for it.

“What, like you didn’t hear?” She asks, only a little surprised that Cassian hadn’t told his roommate everything.

“Oh I heard _about_ it. We all heard about it, it was on three different people’s snapchats for fuck sake.”

“And Yik Yak.” Luke offers from his seat in the bean bag chair. Han points wildly at his friend for his voice of support.

“Yeah, Yik Yak. But nobody knows what it was about.” Han says, tone wheedling. Jyn can’t help but bristle.

“And nobody is gonna.” She snaps, hauling herself to her feet. The action displaces Han who had been leaning towards her and he slips face first into the cushions. Han starts to protest but Jyn has already flown to the security of the kitchen where Leia is cooking. It was Saturday, the day after the incident, and what would have been a movie night. But all things considered, Jyn wasn’t the least bit surprised when Leia had said things were going to be more ‘low key’ this weekend.

Low key, code for Cassian (and Kay) less. The awkward obviousness of it all was almost more painful than the idea of them being there and everyone pretending everything was fine.

Leia looks over her shoulder as she comes in before nodding towards a pile of vegetables still trapped in their clear baggies from the supermarket. “You can start putting the salad together.”

Jyn is grateful for the small task and pulls the cutting board out from the cabinet by the fridge. From the stove Leia continues to mind both her pasta and her sauce pot. The light to the oven is on and glowing against her legs, the meatloaf inside filling the room with the kind of homely smells that Jyn can’t help but associate with her mother’s ghost. And they work in blissful silence for a while, at least until Jyn has gotten through the peppers and carrots. As she starts halving the tiny tomatoes she hears Leia clear her throat.

“So is this a temporary situation or no.”

And it’s a statement, so Jyn could ignore it if she wanted to. Though she knew if she did Leia would just rephrase the question later. She pushes the knife through the tomato with more force then necessary, savoring the noise it makes as it hits the cutting board under her hand as she says “I don’t know.”

“Don’t know.” Leia repeats, and Jyn hears her click off one of the burners on the stove and the sound of boiling water fades out as Leia pulls her colander down from its place in the pantry. Jyn rips open the bag of lettuce as the pasta gets drained. “Jyn…did you wash those before you started cutting them?”

Jyn rolls her eyes. “I’ll wash the lettuce.” She says, coming to stand beside Leia as she shakes the colander to finish draining the pasta. “But your immune system can handle my forgetfulness with the other stuff.”

Leia pulls a face but says nothing as she dumps the pasta into a large bowl next to the sink. When she’s back to stirring her sauce she says “I would like to be able to say something supportive right now Jyn…but you know I can’t do that if I don’t have any context.”

Jyn blew a hard breath of air out of her nose as she ran the lettuce under the cold water. Leia hated discomfort in others. She hated seeing things she couldn’t fix or help or right. So Jyn couldn’t really fault her for this, it was just her nature after all. But that didn’t mean she had to appreciate the effort, because right now she really didn’t want it.

“Well, don’t worry about it.” Jyn said, shaking the water free of the lettuce and turning to the bowl that had been set out. “It’s between him and I and there is really nothing anyone else needs to know or do.” She tried to be gently as she dumped a large handful of chopped veggies into the dish but she watched a tomato clip off the rim of the dish and squelch across the table. Jyn sighed and leaned heavily on the palms of her hands, pressing her body weight down on the table for a moment while she remembered the way Cassian’s jaw had worked while she’d yelled at him. “If it’s worth working out…we’ll work it out.”

Leia clicked off the stove and appeared at Jyn’s elbow, scooping up another handful of chopped veggies and dumping them into the dish. Jyn watched Leia shake a cube of pepper free from her skin and watched it sink into the bed of lettuce, heard the muffled conversations from the living room. Bodhi’s laugh signaled that he had arrived. “Is it worth working out?”

Jyn shot her friend a dark look, but Leia just stared back with her large brown eyes and waited.

“Yeah.” Jyn said finally, scooping the rest of the chopped vegetables up and into the bowl. “Yeah it is.” And that admission alone was more terrifying then the idea of actually admitting what the fight had been about. Because Jyn wasn’t a coward, but she was a ‘burning bridges’ type of girl, and she had burned down plenty for a lot less than this.

* * *

On Tuesday she considered skipping class so as to not see him. But that's childish. She had hoped, as she climbed the steps of the Jedah building that maybe Cassian would be absent. But that kind of wishful thinking was even more childish and she knew it even before she pulled the door open and saw him sitting there. He didn’t look up from his papers until she had slid into her seat beside him, and even then it was only to give her a quick cursor once over. As she started laying out her notebook and pens on the table in front of her she couldn’t decide if that look was better or worse than being ignored.

They hadn’t seen one another since Friday, and somehow the last three days had felt like an eternity. Every moment she had spent outside of the apartment she had been braced for the sight of him in the distance, turning a corner or sitting at a table. Something. But either he had ghosted entirely from campus or he had been much better at seeing her before she had seen him. The traitorous spike of anger that accompanied that thought and snarled an accusatory ‘spy’ in her subconscious caused her to break the tip of her pencil off against her paper. The noise, soft in reality, seemed painfully loud as she saw Cassian’s head turn towards her in her peripheral vision. She sighed as she dropped the pencil and dug through her bag for a sturdy pen. Around them there is an occasional too soft whisper that Cassian turns to glare at, that falls into silence. At least he was as uneasy with the gossip stirred up by their public outburst as she was.

Jyn misses most of what the class was about because she is so absorbed in not looking at Cassian. Is so resolute in ignoring him that she accidentally just ignores everything else. As things start to wind down she catches Professor Imwe’s face turned in their direction, his mouth turned down just enough to telegraph as confusion. Jyn risks a look at Cassian to see if he notices and startles to find him watching her. Unable to suppress the instinct she snarls at him, lip pulling away from her clenched teeth. She regrets it instantly when his face goes from neutral to closed off and before she can get her mouth open to say anything he’s gone. His name comes out of her mouth strangled and hoarse and she isn’t surprised when it’s drowned out by everyone else’s background noise.

She doesn’t know what she would have done if he’d heard her. Or worse, if he’d heard her and had stayed to hear her say more. Because Jyn realizes her mind is blank and she has no idea what she was trying to do. She drops her head into her palm and groans.

“Things seem tense between you and the captain.” Professor Imwe remarks casually from his spot at the front of the room, and Jyn looks up to the realization that everyone else has funneled out of the lecture hall already. She jumps to her feet as she feels her embarrassment burning a streak of red down the back of her neck and starts to shove things into her bag.

“Yes well, “ She falters, unable to find some witty or scathing remark. She glanced back up at him and saw him standing like a serene pillar, hands wrapped around the top of his walking staff. “Well I guess things are.”

Imwe hums and starts up the steps along the far edge of the lecture hall towards the door, and Jyn has no choice but to approach him as they both converge at the exit. He holds the door open for her and she knows she should charge through and down the hall before he can say anything else but instead she waits on the other side of the threshold for him to follow her. He pauses for a moment and then reaches out for her elbow, and Jyn shuffles closer to allow him to take it.

“I had heard that a pair of my students had an argument.” He comments softly, and Jyn tries not to cringe.

“It’s more complicated than just an argument.” She protests as she leads him to the stairwell. They walk out of the Jedah building and Jyn continues to walk with him as he ambles down the pathway.

Professor Imwe nods and smiles that eerie knowing smile of his. “I imagine it would be, you are a pair of complicated creatures.”

Jyn rolls her eyes at that, pulling her scarf a little tighter around herself, slipping it up over her head like a makeshift hood. “Is this the part where you offer cryptic advice?” She means it to be flippant but he just laughs, giddy and unbothered as ever.

“I can be cryptic if you think it would help. “ He says. “The snake bite is painful but the danger lies in the festering of its venom. But the cure is more pain at the hand of a friend who must suck the venom out.”

“Sucking venom is the biggest waste of time if bitten by a snake.” Jyn says, unable to catch herself. He laughs again and she scowls, barely resisting the urge to wrench her arm away from him. Almost as if he can sense her embarrassment at reacting literally to his obvious metaphor he lets her go, but continues to stay pace with her.

“Yes well, you did ask for cryptic.” He replies, smile fond and apologetic. Jyn sighs and looks away, out across campus vainly hoping to catch a glimpse of his blue parka across the way. “If you would like something more straight forward, I can offer that as well.”

Jyn sighs again, more dramatically this time. “Well, can’t hurt I guess.”

“If you’re waiting to find a way to do what you need to do painlessly, you’ll never have closure to this.”

This time Jyn does cringe, flinches almost as if struck. “That’s not fair.” She protests, “It’s not fair that this has to hurt.”

“No, no it’s not.” Imwe says, turning to face her. He looks almost sad, and Jyn swallows hard at the way her jumble of feelings are revolting inside of her. “And if there was a way for you and he to get past this without any more pain then I would show you that path. But there isn’t going to be any kind of relief until you two have released the pressure pressing down on you both. It hangs over you two like a cloud.” His eyes don’t ever directly catch on her own but Jyn gets the distinct feeling he is trying. “If you two were to just try and pretend it never happened, try to move on and be friends again it would always be hollow. And if you try to forget one another instead, it will fester and rot inside you both.”

“I thought you were done being cryptic.” Jyn mutters, casting her eyes around again. She has class in twenty minutes but maybe she should just go home. She isn't really feeling up to trying to coax her brain into learning today.

“Jyn, you and the captain are both hurt by this. Neither of you can heal if the other person continues to hurt. And neither of you can heal until you both understand that hurt on equal terms. You need the truth from each other.”

At this Jyn bristles, her mind racing furiously back to the phone call and what she heard. “I have given him the truth. All of it and more, he is the one who kept things from me.” Professor Imwe does not startle at her shift in tone, at the way her words come out snarled. He just taps his staff against the ground, once then twice.

“There is healing power in airing the truth. You need to hear it and he needs to tell it. But it is going to hurt.”

“So you’re saying I should just talk to him.” Jyn says softly, shaking her head slightly. “That’s your advice? That is almost painfully obvious you know,” She glances up at him and mumbles “no offense.”

Professor Imwe laughs again. “Yes, my advice is to talk to him. Sooner rather than later.” And then he gives her another nod and turns down a side path and glides away. "And go to your next class, Miss. Erso." Jyn sucks in a breath of cold air and holds it deep in her lungs as she watches him go before she turns towards her next class.

She still hasn’t the foggiest idea of what she’d say to him, hopefully it’ll all come to her in the moment. Besides, she is far more interested in what he has to say.

* * *

It’s Friday before she manages to talk to him. And she’s pissed about it and not too proud of her methods but he was the one who had driven her to them. Guerrilla warfare tactics had always been her fall back when things had gotten too far out of her control. With the exception of class, where he is as silent as stone, he hadn’t been anywhere on campus. All the messages she had sent him had gone unanswered, he hadn’t even opened them which was somehow worse than being left on read. She had the sense not to stalk him down in his home, but even that was more out of the petty need to not let him have a home turf advantage.

So here she was, tailing him the back way through the library because she’d seen Kay looking disgruntled and realized it was because Cassian had seen her before she had seen him and tried to pull a disappearing act. He was almost to the stairwell that would have led to the side exit of the library when she spots a door ajar. She shifts her weight and breaks into a run, catching him by the back of his jacket and hauling him off balance towards it. He stumbles and she sees his elbow fly back to strike his unidentified attacker but she’s already pivoted around and down to slide under the limb. His angry look twists into shock at the sight of her as she plants her hands on his chest and shoves him backwards into the room, a muffled curse in Spanish on his lips as she crowds in after and shuts the door.

It’s not an office, she realizes belatedly, like she had expected. Instead she finds herself standing barely a foot from him in the dark of a utility closet. This is less than ideal because a closet is a much less tactical location then an office with say chairs or windows. But it will have to do because at this point Jyn is at the metaphorical end of her rope.

“What the fuck, Jyn-“ Cassian starts and he is breathing hard. For a moment Jyn regrets startling him because she wonders if she’s made him have a panic attack. But her heart is in roaring in her ears and she can’t go back now or else there will never be a forward for her again.

“We need to talk.”

He jerks a little at that, and she hears a hard edge to his voice as he tries to keep it neutral. “I thought I couldn’t talk my way out of this.” He says and Jyn can feel her jaw clenching at her words being thrown back into her face.

“Cassian, we have to talk about this.” She protests, her hand fumbling for the crystal just under the collar of her shirt, desperate for something to ground her because she knows he heard how her voice just shook. So she gestures at the darkness around them, “And if this is what it takes then so be it.”

“This is ridiculous.” He says and starts to move past her to the door but she blocks his way. He pulls back a few steps before he makes contact with her. “Jyn.”

“It wouldn’t have to be this ridiculous if you would just talk to me.” She argues, pushes harder on the subject. Professor Imwe’s comment of the healing power of airing the truth, no matter how painful sits in her throat. “I’ve been trying for days.”

He flinches at that, at her accusation that he’d been avoiding her. He turns his face away and she struggles to see him. The light from the crack at the top and bottom of the door keep the closet from being pitch, but it is still dark as hell. She thinks there might be a light switch near her but she doesn’t want to waste the time looking for it.

“You kept telling me I wouldn’t understand. But now you won’t even give me the chance to try.”

“Jyn-“

“You don’t have to talk to me ever again after this. You don’t have to think about me or see me or forgive me for this or anything else I’ve ever done. But please just tell me the truth Cassian, I just want that.”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and Jyn struggles to see his face in the dim light. She just sees his outline against the wall, reads the tension in the body language of his shoulders. And then he relaxed ever so slightly, not letting his guard down, just deciding a course of action. So when he stepped forward in slow and deliberate steps towards her all Jyn could do was steel her breath and press back against the door. She covered the door knob with her hand and gripped, determined to do what she had to do prevent him from reaching around her and opening the door. From walking out on her without an answer.

But that isn’t what happened.

Instead he leaned forward with his arms on either side of her, his weight supported by his fingertips where they landed on the door by her waist. His breath ghosted over her as he adjusted, hands slipping just a bit farther down the door as he hunched so his mouth was at her ear. Then a little more so it was pressed against her throat. And there, with his mouth pressed against the pulse point where her heart was jackhammering away, Cassian confessed.

“Draven keeps in touch, keeps an eye on me out of some sense of obligation. Keeps me sharp by contracting me to do small civilian level assignments. Research gathering. Ground floor stuff.” His voice is muffled against her skin but every word reaches her with clarity. She feels the tightly curled tension in the muscles across his shoulder when he shakes just a little. Can tell how hard he’s trying to stay neutral. If she shudders against the sensation of him taking a deep breath to collect his thoughts, he doesn’t give any sign of noticing.

“About nine months ago, last March, he gave me a file on an old contact. Someone he said was once an asset but was now becoming a liability.” At this Jyn couldn’t help but turn her head a bit towards him, inadvertently pulling her neck away. He followed the movement and Jyn felt the press of his hair and the top of his head against her cheek as his mouth sought sanctuary again. “He wanted me to find him, he’d fallen off the grid and Draven worried that meant he was planning something big. Something along the lines of domestic terrorism rather than small scale disruptions.”

The hand not currently wrapped around the door knob flew up to wrap around the back of Cassian’s neck, pulling him closer as she half snarled, half whined against his hair “Saw would never, he wouldn’t do something like that. He has never had the manpower. He would never do something that could put such a large number of innocents at risk-“ One of Cassian’s hands had fumbled away from the door to grip her hip, and Jyn’s words sputtered out at the contact for a moment, her protests dying on her tongue.

“You have insight into Saw that Draven probably dreams about.” Cassian says, “Understand his rages and moods and motivations like nobody else. But I couldn’t just ask you that…I couldn’t just turn to you one night as you sat beside me and press you for those details. Made you an asset instead of a friend.” And his grip tightened for a moment as he breathed out the word friend and Jyn knew that that word meant so much more to them both. 

“You could have told me.” She says weakly. This has all gotten away from her and she doesn’t quite know how. “Told me something, anything.”

“I didn’t even know- I didn’t even realize until so much later that your Godfather Saw and Draven’s ex-asset Gerrera were the same man.” Cassian said, shifting his head so she felt his eyelashes flutter against her skin. She felt the grip on her hip start to slacken. “I suspected…but I didn’t…I, fuck Jyn.”

Cassian suddenly pulls back from the door, her face in both his hands and she only stumbles a little following him. Her hands wrapped around the backs of his own as she takes a shuddering breath. She’s close to tears and she thinks he is too by the way he shakes. Her eyes have adjusted significantly to the dark as she makes out the shapes of cleaning supplies on the shelves beside her. He has her head turned towards the side a bit, enough that his mouth is near her temple, pressed part way between her ear and cheek. He can’t even bring himself to look her in the face, and it’s not from anger…but from shame.

“I wanted to be wrong, Jyn. From the moment you first said your Godfather’s name I wanted to be wrong. And then you kept talking about him and I just kept ignoring it because I didn’t want it to be true.” He stops abruptly, tone dropping until even at this distance it’s barely audible to her. Cassian’s voice is raw at this point, and he can’t seem to stop himself from muttering soft things in Spanish against her skin. Jyn can’t understand them, but she knows a self-deprecating tone when she hears one. And then he sighs as if spent and says “I did not want to hurt you.”

He steps back and away from her so quickly that she stumbles, but she tilts back on her heels to thunk against the door to stop him from reaching out to steady her. And this was it, this was the ball back in her court. Everything she’d wanted to know laid out at her feet and yet somehow the tension between them had only managed to ratchet itself up several more notches. So much for Imwe’s assertions of pressure relief.

“I couldn’t just undo months of work just because I discovered your connection.” He said softy and she was frustrated to realize he was already composing himself. Already centering himself and becoming calm while she was still adrift. “And I couldn’t bring myself to cut ties with you for the sake of the job.”

“So you picked both.” She said, and she meant it to sound more accusatory then it did. Instead it just sounded hurt. It stung like a betrayal, like she’d been used when deep down she knew she hadn’t. Cassian had never asked her about Saw, never pressed her for details she didn’t offer up willingly. The angry part of her railed that it was probably his training, manipulating it out of her like it was her own idea to offer it up. But she knew better than that.

Cassian’s eyes flickered down to the ground, she was starting to see him better now, and ever so slightly shook his head. This time when he moved for the door she let him, side stepping away from him so their spots in the closet was reversed. He pulled the door open a crack and they both winced against the artificial light from the hall on the other side.

“I turned in my last report two weeks ago. I told Draven I was done with the assignment. That Saw hadn’t moved and wasn’t a domestic threat like he feared…I never told him about you or Bodhi. I picked you, Jyn. In the end, I picked you.”

He left her standing there struggling to process as he moved out into the hall. She realized as the door clicked shut behind him that he hadn’t waited around for forgiveness or an apology. Hadn’t waited around for something he didn’t think he deserved.

* * *

“Where have you been?” Bodhi asked when she finally stumbled into the apartment a few hours later. How she had managed to make it through her last class was a mystery to herself but it was one she’d dwell on later. She must not have looked good because she heard Bodhi’s voice go up an octave as he launched himself off the couch. “Jyn, Jyn what happened?”

“I spoke to Cassian.” She says, letting him lead her to the couch. He pauses beside her, hands running up and down her forearm.

“And? How did it go?”

She closes her eyes and lets out a frustrated sob. Bodhi’s hands scrabble to wrap around her and hold her to him. “I’m so stupid. “ She says, no fight left in her as she slumps against her brother.

“You’re not!” Bodhi cries in protest, but Jyn shakes her head with a bitter laugh.

“I’m stupid and he’s an idiot and if I just knew how to talk to people like a fucking person instead of a wild animal none of this would have fucking happened.”

“What happened? Did you have another fight?” Bodhi asked hopelessly, his hands running up and down her back and running through her hair.

“No,” She says and it comes out almost like a laugh. “No we just had the conversation we should have had instead of the fucking fight in the first place.”

“Jyn, what was the fight about?” Bodhi asks, and he asks it so softly. Jyn feels her heart squeeze at the question, because it is the first time he has asked outright instead of dancing around the question out of respect for her feelings.

Jyn let out another bitter sounding laugh as she buried her face in Bodhi’s shoulder. “Saw. We fought about Saw.” And she feels the way Bodhi freezes for a moment before his arms grip her even tighter in his embrace. It’s a tenderness that burns, and she sobs again.

Bodhi doesn’t say anything else of a long while, just holds her while she cries because he knows these tears are not over Cassian. Recognizes the rawness of her voice to be the unpleasant amalgamation of rage and regret and abandonment that only Saw’s memory can drag out of her. And when she manages to quiet down to just a few snotty sniffles, he leaves her on the couch to make them hot chocolate on the stove.

She’s dry eyed and red faced when he returns, her knees pulled up to her chest while she plays with her mother’s necklace. Jyn clutches her cup in both hands as she tells him everything that had happened, from the start of the fight to the end of the closet confession. And Bodhi just listens with one hand wrapped around her ankle, his thumb rubbing against her skin in a soothing pattern to ground her.

“If it had been about anything else, anyone else, I wouldn’t have blown up.” She said after a deep sip from her cup. “But it had to be Saw…and I just…I just tore down the friendship without even thinking about it.”

“You aren’t wrong to be upset.” Bodhi protests, squeezing her ankle. “It sounds like, yeah it sounds like yeah he had his reasons for why he did but you can’t just invalidate your own feelings because of it.”

“I know that.” Jyn replies, blowing a short breath across the surface of her drink. “I know that I just…I could have still been upset without going off like a bomb.”

“Galen always said your temper would get the better of you one day.” Bodhi agreed, and Jyn tried not to bristle at that because she knew he meant well.

“Yeah well…there isn’t much I can do about it now.” She tilts her head back against the couch. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty and neither of us have the high ground in this but I can’t see how to make this better between us.” They sit in silence for a few more moments, sipping their hot chocolate before Bodhi finally says,

“You know, food usually helps…”

* * *

“Uh…am I late for something?” Han asked, squinting at Jyn as she stood in the hall outside his apartment. He looked at his bare wrist like it was supposed to tell him something and then squinted at her again. “Were we all hanging out today?”

“No.” Jyn says, unsure of how to get past this. She’d been hoping Han wouldn’t have been home. She clutched the handles of the bag of Indian take out a little tighter, feeling the plastic bite into her fingers with the weight. “I’m actually here to see-“

And the realization that dawns on Han’s face shuts Jyn up. For a moment she worries he will start smirking, making snide and inappropriate comments about Cassian and her. She curls her fist and prepares to swing it at his jaw if the phrase ‘hate sex’ even starts to form there. But she’s left blinking in surprise as he takes a few quick steps back and ushers her in. Before she can say anything else he is fishing his keys from the bowl by the door and leaving, no shirt on and his phone quite obviously still sitting on the coffee table. He had even left the tv on, a professional poker game that only Lando and Han would have found enjoyable.

And somehow that was even more awkward then Han making jokes about the situation.

She took a deep, shaky breath and made her way down the hall towards Cassian’s room. It was weird to knock on his door, and she heard the pause on the other side that accompanied it. “Han?” He called, sounding bewildered. Jyn swallowed against the urge to run. He was moving now, towards the door repeating Han’s name with an increasingly suspicious tone.

“It’s me.” She finally manages to squeak out, startled be the sound of his hand on the doorknob. She hears him still again, and she closes her eyes against her anxiety. Keeps them closed when she hears the door swing open and can feel him staring at her.

“What are you-“

“I’m sorry I trapped you in a closet.” She says in a rush, still with her eyes closed. “I’m sorry I said those things to you. I’m sorry I didn’t give you a chance to explain…” Jyn says in a rush, pausing to take another deep breath of air. “I’m sorry I didn’t give you a chance to explain yourself when you got that phone call. I’m sorry I jumped to those conclusions and that I was angry and I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.” She pauses again, and then adds “And I’m sorry I shoved you so hard when I pushed you into the closet.”

Cassian takes a deep breath and Jyn tries not to jump when his hand wraps around her wrist and pulls. She moves into his room and stays at the door as he takes the bags from her. Sets them on the desk before turning and leaning against it to look at her again. He’s studying her with a look of disbelief that makes her squirm in her shoes. Finally when she can’ t take the quiet any longer she cracks her thumb knuckle, which startles him enough to realize he had been staring.

“Why are you apologizing to me?” He asks finally, and Jyn frowns.

“What do you mean? Because I-“

“No I mean, not for the shouting or the closet thing. Yeah that was…yeah that wasn’t great but I just mean…why are you apologizing to me for being angry.” He looks down at his feet and Jyn realizes his ears are red. “You had every reason to be angry with me.”

“Because I don’t want to be angry with you Cassian.” She says. “I kind of hate being angry with you, it makes me feel sick.”

He lets out something that sounds like a laugh as he continues to look at the ground. He starts to speak, pauses to lick his lips and starts again. “I have been feeling pretty sick about the whole thing too.” He looks up at her finally, eyes soft and stance unguarded. “I have been feeling pretty sick about how much I hurt you with all this.”

“I know…” She says softly, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other. She tries to break the tension by forcing a laugh “What are the chances..huh?”

Cassian snorts at her attempt, but his smile is genuine. It helps her form a small one of her own. Gives her the confidence to slip further into the room to rest her hip against the far end of his desk so that they are now just an arm’s length away.

“What are the chances.” He echoes back, eyes raking over her face like he’s searching for any sign of anger, of distrust. It would hurt if she didn’t find herself looking for the same things in him.

“Are you…are you still a spy?” She asks before wincing, and he flinches at the same time she does. “No, I’m sorry I don’t mean…I’m just trying to understand the whole situation still…”

“Not…not exactly.” Cassian says quickly, turning to face her more fully. “It’s less official…I don’t have access to resources or anything like that, just a handful of files and leads. I’m more like, I think I’m billed as a private investigator.” He explains, though he blushes at that as if it is somehow worse.

Jyn can’t help but snort a little, “A PI? Like in the movies?” Cassian huffs at her, pretending to look disgruntled as she giggles.

“It’s not like in the movies.” He protests. “There is much less chain smoking, and I have never had to stand out in the rain under a bridge for questionable tips or photographs.” Jyn laughs outright at that and shakes her head. The jokes are a balm for the tension that is still hovering around them.

“It seems so simple now.” She says, playing with the plastic handle to the take out.

“Yeah.” Cassian agrees with a heavy sigh. Then after a moment “I should have told you the second I made the official connection.”

Jyn swallows a little. “I would have still been upset.” She admits. “That’s just the way I am about Saw. That whole thing…that loyalty and that paranoia just runs too deep.”

“Yeah maybe.” Cassian said, running a hand through his hair. “But maybe it would have been less defensive if it hadn’t been a surprise like that…and it defiantly wouldn’t have been so public.” Jyn winces again and mumbles another apology. But Cassian closes his hand around her idle fingers and squeezes. “Please don’t apologize to me again Jyn.”

“Does that mean you forgive me?” She asks and he laughs again.

“I forgave you a while ago…I was just avoiding you because I didn’t think you would ever forgive me.”

“What kind of fucking sense does that make?” She protests, twisting her hand under his so their palms laid flat against one another.

Cassian shrugged a bit, looking sheepish. “I figured I had fucked up bad enough that we had entered feud territory.”

“I guess body slamming you into a dark enclosed space probably didn’t help that notion.”

Cassian laughs again, shaking his head. “No, not right away. But I am glad you wanted to know because I did want to tell you.” He takes a deep breath and hedges closer to her. “Are we, are we okay?”

Jyn takes a deep breath and nods. “I would like us to be.”

Cassian shifts like he’s going to touch her with his free hand and then hesitates before turning away from her to open his top drawer. Before she can ask him what he’s doing he has turned back and lays a photo on the desk space between them.

It takes Jyn a moment to realize what she’s looking at, and it nearly breaks her heart in a whole new way. She had never expected to see Saw looking so old…in her memories he was still as strong and imposing as ever. She never thought there would be gray like that in his hair, that the skin would sag off his bones in such a way. The tubes of his oxygen tank making him look even more burdened. She squeezes Cassian’s hand so tight that she is sure it must hurt but he doesn’t protest.

“I want to tell you everything Jyn, if you want to hear it.”

She shakes her head violently to clear the sorrow trying to claw its way up her throat, to dismiss the tears from her eyes as best she can. She isn’t ready for that she realizes with a painful thudding of her heart. Not yet.

“Maybe…maybe later.” She says, running a finger over Saw’s face even though she knows in the back of her mind that would smudge the photo. She then jerks her hand away and digs out a container of the Indian food. “For now we should eat this before it gets cold.”

Cassian laughs a little behind her but moves away to give her space. “Okay.”

“And while we eat, maybe you can tell me some fun stories about being a private eye. Do you have a trench coat? Can I see the trench coat?”

Cassian groans in tandem with his bed as he flops backwards onto it. “It’s not like the 70’s TV shows either.” He protests and Jyn just laughs.

It should be frightening, how easily they seemed to find this rhythm again. But she found herself slipping easily back into it, taking to it like a fish to water. She had missed this, missed it almost desperately for the whole week they hadn’t been speaking. And if the way he kept looking at her like she was some sort of specter was any indication, he had missed it too. Missed her.

Her heart stuttered in her chest in a way that had nothing to do with grief or discomfort.

* * *

“So now that it’s been like a week and a half and you’re all made up and everything can we please know what that fight was about?” Han asked as he leaned over the back of Leia’s armchair and watched Jyn put on her boots.

“Nope.” She replied, putting extra emphasis on making the last part of the word pop. She catches a glimpse of Han’s indignant expression in the glass of the TV and tries not to grin. In the kitchen she hears Leia and Cassian conversing in Spanish, knows he is saying his goodbyes too. He offered to drive her back to her apartment since Bodhi and Luke are still on the balcony talking and she is loath to drag her brother away when he could just as easily stay.

“So that’s just it then. You nearly tear one another’s throats out and now you’re as close as ever.” Han grumbles. Chewie tells him something in Norwegian and Han waves him off. “I will not ‘just leave it’ you walking carpet.”

Jyn twists around in her seat to look up at him and gives him her best glare. Han frowns back, crossing his arms over his chest and looking back. She catches the way the corner of his mouth twitches, realizes he’s earnest about this and knows in a way she and Cassian aren’t being fair. So she takes as much pity upon him as she thinks he deserves.

“It’s personal Han…but I promise it’s all okay now. We’re both okay.”

Han studies her back, glances towards the kitchen when Cassian laughs loudly at something Leia said, drowning out her snickers. When he looks back at Jyn his expression has softened marginally. “Okay.”

“Ready to go?” Cassian asks from the door, and Jyn looks away from Han who has already broken out of his serious stance into something unbothered and easy. Jyn nods and thumps her fist against Han’s hip in a friendly way before ducking away from his retaliatory swipe at the top of her head and making a break for the door.

“Yeah, I’ll see you later Leia.”

“See you two around.” Leia replies, her look just as fond as Han’s had been as she watched them go. Jyn makes a show of blowing her friend a kiss which just makes Leia roll her eyes as she makes a show of turning her cheek to catch it.

They are halfway down the stairwell before Jyn stops short, and after a few more steps Cassian stops too. He half turned his body, each foot on a different step as he looked up at her. For half a second Jyn reveled at being taller than him and for the other half of a second she wondered if her heart was going to beat straight out of her chest. He quirked an eyebrow at her, and she saw the way his eyes traced over her skin and she just knew her blush was giving her away.

“Jyn?” He asked softly, in that tone that went straight to the base of her spine. She gripped the railing as tight as she could with her hand for support as she leaned forward and down towards him. Cassian turned and took one step up to meet her halfway, his hand coming to rest on top of her’s on the railing.

She marveled at the tenderness of a closed mouthed kiss when it’s shared with someone whose touch makes you burn the way Cassian’s burns her. When she pulls back he sways forward for a moment, mouth following hers before he swallows and lets her go. And her heart swells for it, for the thoughtfulness of it as his thumb swipes gently against the back of her hand. She steps down a step so she can wrap her arms around him and push her forehead into his sternum. His heart is beating just as hard as her own, and she presses a feather soft kiss there over his shirt that makes him rumble with quiet laughter.

“Jyn,” He says again, voice low as he ran a hand slowly down her spine. She looked up at him, eyes jumping from his dark stare to his mouth and back again.

“Cassian.” She replied, gripping the back of his shirt in her hands.

He studies her for another moment, before dropping his head so he could press his mouth directly to her ear. For a moment he mumbled things Jyn couldn’t understand, his volume was too soft and he was speaking in Spanish and- Jyn shuddered violently against him when we pressed a kiss to the spot just below her ear.

“Let me take you home.” He says, and Jyn feels ever nerve ending in her body light up.

“Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> So I don't feel as happy with this one as I have with other stories in this series but this is the one that wanted to be written the most. I just hope it was mildly coherent. Thanks for reading and I promise the next story in this series will be MUCH more light hearted and fun.


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